Marian Meets Championship Expectation in Finishing Repeat Run
By
Paul Costanzo
Special for MHSAA.com
November 20, 2021
BATTLE CREEK – Winning the MHSAA Division 1 Volleyball Finals title was the expectation for Bloomfield Hills Marian.
Not just Saturday, when that expectation became reality with a 25-18, 22-25, 25-18, 25-19 win against Ann Arbor Skyline. Not just as the postseason began.
That was the expectation from the time the ball was rolled onto the court for the Mustangs’ first practice in August.
“Although it was a goal, that never made us get complacent or get lazy,” Marian senior and Miss Volleyball winner Ava Brizard said. “We always worked our butts off like we were the underdogs, like we were the last-ranked team in the state. We always worked so hard even though people were expecting us to go back-to-back. But we just kept setting that bar higher and higher for ourselves, and I think that’s what really helped us get to this moment right here.”
The title was the second straight for Marian, and fourth in program history. The Mustangs rolled through the season as Division 1’s top team, going 53-1, and dropping just four sets coming into Saturday’s matchup. All this with a giant target on their collective back.
“I felt this enormous amount of pressure all season,” Marian coach Mayssa Cook said. “As a coach you like to think you have more control than you do. I tried to carry as much of it for them – I knew they had a lot on their plate and a lot on them. I will say I was so impressed with their composure and how they handled stress all season long. I absolutely know the four seniors on this team (Brizard, Janiah Jones, Sophie Treder and Sarah Sylvester) are very ready to step into playing roles at the next level. Most girls going into college don’t have this level of experience, level of play under pressure that they have had. So, we’re exceptionally proud of them as a school.”
Marian did not play like a team under pressure, running out to a double-digit lead in the first set and winning comfortably. But Skyline (55-4-2) came roaring back in the second with an attack led by Harper Murray and Cari Bohm, and handed the Mustangs just their fifth set loss of the season.
“I think we just have the offense that has the ability to compete with them,” Bohm said. “With Harper and me, we have some big hitters – Kate (Maley) -- they haven’t seen that competition yet.”
Marian responded to the rare setback, and while Skyline hung tough for most of the final two sets, Marian simply had too much down the stretch.
“Throughout the game, more of in the second and the later sets, we figured out that their right side defense wasn’t as strong, so we started targeting that,” Skyline senior setter Lauren Lee said. “Toward the end of that last set, they kind of caught onto what we were doing and polished it up.”
Brizard and Murray put on the show they were expected to provide as two of the state’s best attackers, each finishing with 25 kills. Brizard was backed by Treder’s nine kills for Marian, while Ella Schomer had six and Jones and Sylvester each had five.
Ava Sarafa had 44 assists and 12 digs for the Mustangs, who played solid team defense. Brizard led the team with 13 digs, while Lauren Heming had 12 and Treder had 10.
Bohm finished with 11 kills for Skyline, and Lee had 46 assists. Jordan Hall had 21 digs for the Eagles, and Murray added 14.
The trip to the Finals was the first for Skyline in its fifth year as a program. It had qualified for the Semifinals in 2019.
“I think this year it was our focus to get to Battle Creek and be in the Finals, and to give whatever team was on the other side a battle,” Skyline coach Chris Christian said. “I’m proud of these ladies, because they gave Marian a battle. It wasn’t like it was two years ago when we were here and we were just not ready mentally, not really equipped. This time, we were ready, and I think for them to be able to see that anything is possible from where this program started five years ago, we’ve come a long way. There still is room for growth for us.”
PHOTOS (Top) Bloomfield Hills Marian raises the Division 1 championship trophy after finishing a repeat title run Saturday. (Middle) Marian’s Janiah Jones (5) sends a potential kill at the block of Skyline’s Kate Maley (11) and Cari Bohm (18). (Photos by Hockey Weekly Action Photos.)
Believe it: Mercy Nets 2nd Finals Title with 'Unbelievable' Comeback
By
Paul Costanzo
Special for MHSAA.com
November 18, 2023
BATTLE CREEK – Loretta Vogel had a single word to describe Farmington Hills Mercy’s five-set victory Saturday in the Division 1 Volleyball Final: Unbelievable.
“When we played Marian, to me, that was everything for me,” the Mercy coach said of her team’s Quarterfinal win over the 2022 Division 1 champion. “We planned, we knew what we wanted to do, and we went in there and it was three games – bing, bang, boom, here we go.
“Then it’s like, ‘We’re going to Battle Creek.’ We did our scouting reports, then to get in the Finals, to be down two games, such adversity, unbelievable. I don’t know if it’s going to hit me for six months, what we accomplished. It was unbelievable.”
After dropping the first two sets, Mercy came back to defeat Grand Rapids Forest Hills Northern 13-25, 23-25, 25-21, 25-22, 15-12 at Kellogg Arena, adding a second championship to the program’s first won in 2019.
The Marlins finished the season with a 32-15-3 record and entered the postseason outside the top 10 in Division 1. With just two seniors on the roster, three sophomores in the starting lineup and a freshman as one of their leading hitters, one can start to see how Vogel arrived at “unbelievable.”
Of course, on Saturday, they didn’t play like a young, unranked team, especially after going down two sets.
“I think we were a little timid in the first set,” said Mercy junior setter Campbell Flynn, who is committed to Nebraska. “It was our first time actually being in the Finals, so we were all a little nervous. But I think we stayed composed later in the set, and also kept rallies alive.”
Flynn put on a masterclass in game management, finishing with 41 assists, but doing so much more than that.
“Campbell Flynn took over the match,” Northern coach Valerie Lurye said. “We put a lot of our gameplan to making sure (Flynn) couldn’t score, and forcing her to do things like setting other kids. And the other kids showed up. … We forced her to have to do something different, which is what we wanted to do. We did really well Set 2, then Set 3 and 4 she caught on. She’s going to Nebraska for a simple reason, and that’s because she’s able to be someone who takes over the match and understands, ‘Hey, I can’t dump the ball right now. I have other people I have to go to.’ Her movement of the ball is what really threw us off our gameplan.”
The biggest beneficiary of Campbell’s ball movement was freshman Kate Kalczynski, who finished the match with a game-high 25 kills. Five of those kills came during the fifth set.
“Kate, she played amazing today,” Flynn said. “I literally just had to set her the ball and she got kills. I’m so proud of her. She’s only a freshman, but she played a big role. I was just so beyond proud of her.”
Cree Hollier added 10 kills for Mercy, while Angie Butler – playing with a torn meniscus suffered over the summer – had seven kills and 22 digs. One of Butler’s kills came off a wild scramble late in the fourth set and gave her team a 20-18 lead. It was the first bit of distance Mercy was able to create in what had been a back-and-forth set – which the Marlins went on to win.
Vogel said her team started to play like it had nothing to lose after the first two sets, and that flurry certainly backed up that assertion.
The change in attitude and energy didn’t go unnoticed on the other side of the net.
“I would say they just really turned up their energy,” Northern senior Elana Erickson said. “The first two sets, they didn’t have a lot of energy and they couldn’t really serve and pass. They really turned it up though in the third, fourth and fifth set.”
Erickson, who will play at Western Michigan next year, finished with 22 kills and 27 digs to lead Northern (45-8-1). Kendall Hopewell added 16 kills, 11 digs and seven total blocks, while Lexie Stotenbur had 41 assists.
Jillian Collins had 24 digs for Mercy, while Flynn added 15.
PHOTOS (Top) Farmington Hills Mercy surrounds Campbell Flynn (28) in celebration Saturday at Kellogg Arena. (Middle) The Marlins’ Kate Kalczynski (2) connects on a kill attempt with Kendall Hopewell (9) and Riley Loehfelm (16) putting up a block. (Below) FHN’s Madalin Hersman (6) and Flynn meet at the net. (Photos by Hockey Weekly Action Photos.)